


Mindfulness for the Beginner Cat

by FeoplePeel



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Animal Transformation, Childhood Friends, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Minor Character with Dementia, Multi, Romantic Friendship, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-07 19:31:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18239264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeoplePeel/pseuds/FeoplePeel
Summary: Carlos and Harry are childhood friends, and Harry cashes in on Carlos’ goodwill whenever he can. Luckily for Harry, Carlos' new roommate, Ben, is the definition of good.Breathe in, hiss out.





	Mindfulness for the Beginner Cat

**Author's Note:**

> Started as a Romance is a Bonus Book AU that deviated wildly after one too many cat metaphors. Enjoy this crack fic taken seriously to its logical end! Many thanks to [edreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/evanescentdream93) for letting me talk to her all the way through tagging this thing, [bal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballantine/pseuds/ballantine) for reading and untangling the web that were the relationships of the first 10k, [Sim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn) for tips on mindfulness and the ending, and [Liz](http://goddamnrey.tumblr.com/) for betaing and _lion about the house_.

Ben doesn’t recognize the man standing on his doorstep. He is waifish, made more so by the way his wet clothes cling to him under his coat. Ben is sure it would look attractive under the right circumstances, but combined with the miserable expression and the dark bangs matted to his forehead, he more closely resembles a cat left out in the rain.

“Is Carlos here?” The man, only slightly taller than Ben, is trying to look into the townhouse, an impatient set to his jaw.

“Yeah, one sec.” Ben shuffles to the side of the doorway and, not wanting to seem impolite, offers to let him just inside. He can hear Carlos coming from the kitchen and takes the opportunity to grab the dripping man a towel from the linen closet in the hall. He catches the tail end of their exchange as he comes back.

“...look like...bad.”

“You can tell me I look like shit, I won’t tell your mommy you said a bad word.”

“Shut up.”

“Oh ho ho!” The man takes a step back, arms raised and smiling in a wide, crooked way that looks wildly out of place below his incredibly straight nose. Ben offers the towel under his right arm out to him and he looks at it for a long, confused moment before snatching it and throwing it over his head with a muttered _thanks_. Beside him, Carlos looks, in Ben’s opinion, a mix of exasperated and fond; Ben has seen the expression more than once on his mother’s face.

"My bedroom’s on the right, don’t use the glass shampoo bottle, I paid a lot of money for that. Oh, wait!” Carlos grabs the man’s arm as he’s walking between them, still toweling his hair dry. “Harry, my roommate, Ben. Ben, Harry, friend from the Isle. I can vouch for him as mostly harmless.”

“Now, now, don’t bias him.” Harry sneaks a glance from underneath the towel, completely ignoring the hand Ben is offering him. “Your mileage may vary.”

Harry is safely ensconced in Carlos’ room before Carlos speaks again, though in a lower register, almost apologetic. “Is it okay if he crashes for a bit?"

"Sure, that's," Ben shakes his head, "that's fine. Is he okay?"

"What? Oh," Carlos laughs, like Ben's concern is strange and unwarranted. "He's fine. He just...does this."

“Would it bother him if you told me why?”

“It’s different every time,” Carlos says, heading back to his dinner, which must be cold by now. “If he ever tells me I’ll let you know.”

 

 

Ben gets used to Harry in stages. He's there in the mornings watching a channel Ben's not sure they even pay for--old episodes of _Murder She Wrote_ and _Designing Women_ \--and by the time Ben's back from work he's gone, usually staying away for the duration of the weekend. Carlos has very little to say on the subject of Harry's background, but he's clearly got opinions on the guy based on experience. Carlos does something that convinces Harry to do his own laundry and buy groceries, and sometimes Ben will leave his room to find the two of them at the kitchen table, Carlos huddled over his books while Harry...well Ben can only describe what Harry does as pontificating.

"He's great at helping me fill out the word count for my lit papers," Carlos tells Ben when Harry wanders off to the shower or leaves to do...whatever it is Harry _does_.

Ben only laughs. "I'll keep that in mind."

 

They talk, but mostly because they can’t help it. Like living with a cat you invited in off the street, Ben finds himself arriving back at the same metaphor he applied to Harry the first night they met. There are a lot of head nods and grunts of acknowledgements for Harry’s part. Ben tries to be friendly but, for the first time, finds he doesn’t know how.

It’s two weeks after Harry arrives, when Ben finally stops trying, that something gives.

"You getting food?"

"Uh," Ben's grip tightens around his keys at the sound of Harry’s voice over the television. He's not startled. Surprised, for sure. "Yeah."

Harry shimmies off of the couch, looking for something by his feet. "Chips okay?"

Ben isn't sure what to say. He _likes_ chips. "You want me to grab you some?"

"Nah, I'll come with. Give me ten seconds." And in less than that he's grabbed a faded red jacket from underneath the couch. Ben's a little afraid about what else could be under there. "You drive? I drive?"

"You have a car?" Ben asks, honestly curious.

"No, but I can drive."

"Well you're not driving my car."

"All right your highness," Harry smiles. "Don't say I didn't offer."

 

 

“So how do you know Carlos?” Ben sits down across from Harry, arranging his legs sideways to avoid the sprawling reach of Harry’s gangly legs.

Harry takes a giant bite of his burger, eyeing Ben in a way that makes him feel as though he’s being sized up. “I saved his life when we were kids.”

“What did you do?”

“Don’t remember,” Harry says between sips from Ben’s drink. Ben presses his lips together and pretends not to notice how skillfully his cup has been moved to Harry’s side of the table during their conversation. “Does it matter?”

Ben secretly thinks it must, otherwise Harry wouldn’t have mentioned it. Instead he laughs it off, allows the obfuscation. Let them have their history.

“Anyway, I guess he thinks he owes me now so he lets me crash at his when my place is...inhospitable.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ben says, earning himself a questioning look. “That your place is inhospitable. Refill?”

Harry pushes the cup back towards Ben with a shrug. “S’your drink.”

 

 

“I understand why you like him,” Ben tells Carlos that night.

Carlos chokes on a handful of tater tots. “I never said _that_.”

“He’s kind of relaxing to be around.” Ben says and Carlos stares at him like he’s grown a full beard in front of his eyes. “I mean he’s an easy going guy.”

“Ben, _you’re_ an easy going guy.” Carlos is almost accusing about the way he says this. “'Easy Living' by Billie Holiday levels of easy going. Harry is...trust me, you don’t know him like I do, but easy going is not the word to describe him.”

“How did he save your life?”

Carlos looks up, caught off-guard. “He told you about that?”

“A little bit. He said he doesn't remember.”

“He doesn’t,” Carlos says, too casual. “Car accident. He was in the hospital for a while after and I don’t think it ever came back to him, pushing me out of the way. Just all the recovery after.”

“Ouch,” Ben winces in sympathy, swiping one of Carlos’ tots.

“He got a real kick out of bossing me around while he was stuck doing physio and honestly it was kind of fun. I had to go feed his dog because he knew his dad wouldn’t. I was _terrified_ of dogs like you wouldn’t believe but Ticker was an angel. A big, old hound dog that slept all the time.” Carlos is cooing at nothing. Ben’s seen this side of him before, watching animal videos on the internet or the one time they went to the aquarium. There’s a reason he’s studying some sort of advanced Zoology (Ben can’t remember the real degree but...animals is the general idea).

“Once Harry got better, I just assumed we’d both go back to hanging out with our friends; it’s not like we were loners, stuck with just each other, you know? But every so often he’d swing by my school and invite me over to see Ticker. Or, like, make sure I wasn’t being picked on.”

Ben goes through the kitchen galley to grab a glass and fill it with water. None of this meshes exactly with the image of Harry he has, nor with the attitude Carlos seems to have towards his old friend.

“He tell you why he dropped in this time?”

Carlos shakes his head, closing the lid on his take out tray. He really should be eating better, Ben has the offhand thought.

 

 

Evie returns from her month-long business trip to the ass end of Ohio and must book it straight for Ben's house because it's an unspeakable hour the Saturday morning she knocks on his door.

“Mal told me that Jay told her that Harry is here.”

“Oh please, Evie. Won’t you come in?”

A manager at his father’s company and one of the few coworkers he enjoys eating lunch with, Evie was the reason Ben had found such a perfect roommate in Carlos, whom she had apparently known since they were children. This must be the reason she feels entitled to enter their home at her leisure, Ben reasons, watching her remove delicate looking blue shoes and plant herself firmly by the couch, throwing her coat over the back in a move that screams, _I have come in and I'm comfortable so I shan't leave._ Ben lets the door swing shut with an over loud breath.

He knows the Mal and Jay she means too; nice people, if the most complex relationships in his circle of friends. He’s known Jay the longest, a man who's straightforward to a fault, though he clearly cares about his friends. Evie’s girlfriend, Mal is a bit beyond Ben's realm of understanding. He would swear by everything he believed in that she hated him, but every interaction seemed to cement, in Evie and Carlos’ minds, that Mal found him utterly delightful.

“My question is,” Evie is talking over Ben's thoughts. “Why didn't _you_ tell me?”

“You were out of town.”

“We talked last week!”

“On a _conference call_ ,” Ben leans against the couch, lips tugging up into a smile. “I'm pretty sure my dad's rule about personal conversation on company time includes, _Oh hey so this guy showed up at my door last night_.”

“He’s bad news, Ben,” she says and he recognizes the tone from countless conversations pre-board meeting. She's gearing up for a fight. “We try to tell Carlos but he--”

“No,” he interrupts her, firm enough to halt the conversation. He immediately softens his tone. “Whatever this is, something between Carlos and Harry or some old beef you guys have with him, I'm not getting in the middle of it.”

Evie looks slightly sheepish. “Sorry, Ben. I just...we worry.” He motions to the wine rack behind her and she turns him down with a slight shake of her head. “ _Please_ , I'm not so bad off that I have to pre-day drink.”

“Gotta admit I'm a little curious,” Ben rounds the couch to slide onto it. “I thought all you Islanders stuck together.”

“Different side of the Isle.” Evie perches next to him, eyes bloodshot, tired as he's ever seen her and still the most proper person in the room. “Just trust me, Ben, when Harry shows up trouble follows. It might be a week, or two, or next month. But it's going to make its way here. Then, whether you want to be or not, you're in the middle of it.”

“What kind of trouble?”

The door to Carlos’ room opens, a sleepy, questioning voice calling Evie's name on the tail end of a yawn. Evie leans in to whisper.

“You'll know it when you see it.”

 

 

Trouble’s name was Uma, though Ben didn't realize this upon first meeting her.

Ben is in the middle of ordering his usual post-lunch drink, wallet already halfway out of his back pocket, when Tyrone stops him, a hand on his wrist.

“Don't worry about it man, she paid for you.” He motions to the patio of the shop where Ben can only make out the back of someone's head; blue braids falling over leather-clad shoulders.

“Thanks.” He tosses a dollar in the tip jar anyway and weaves between the tables.

She half-turns at his cough and, even in profile, she's striking. “I appreciate the gesture but I'm--”

She kicks the chair beside her, and his hands fly out to catch it only an inch short of jabbing him in the gut. “Don't care. I'm not here for you. I don't know Carlos’ address and Mal's not answering her phone.”

“I'm guessing you're here about Harry then.” Ben pushes the chair back in, facing little resistance from her feet.

“Oat milk, lavender chai!”

“ _Oat_?”

“You paid for it,” Ben throws over his shoulder, feeling--for the moment at least--triumphant.

“What's your name?” he asks upon his return, more civilly than he thinks possible considering the chair he's now in is one she tried to turn into a weapon moments ago.

She gives him a familiar look; one Harry gave him not even a week before. “Uma.”

Ben nods. “You've been mentioned, in passing.”

“ _Mentioned_?” she takes a breath through her nose, seemingly offended.

“Honestly, Harry and I haven't gotten to know one another incredibly well,” he takes a sip of his drink, distracted, and pulls his phone from his jeans to type out a message.

_Bringing Uma to the house. Cool? Sidenote: met Uma._

“Who are you texting?”

“Carlos. Telling him you're coming by.” She stares at the phone with evident suspicion. “It’s his house too, he deserves the heads up.”

“...fine.” She crosses her arms, delivering the message with an air of belligerent finality at the same time as his phone buzzes.

One new message, from Carlos: _Fine._

 

 

“How did you get caught up in all this anyway?” Uma seems far more comfortable walking along the backstreets of Auradon, winding their way out of the city and towards the townhomes and student housing complexes. He can't blame her. Days like today, Ben abandons his car all together and enjoys the walk too.

“I'm not.” He notices he need not worry about keeping a slower pace for her. Her uneven rush of steps making up for his longer leg reach. “I'm just showing you where I live.”

“Funny. If you're not involved,” she jogs ahead just to be able to turn around and stare him down. “How did I know to buy you that drink?”

He imagines there are several ways (top of that list being a warning from a co-worker who he will be having a long lunch with later). “I think you're resourceful,” he says instead. “You didn't need me to find Harry. I was just a quicker route.”

The expression on Uma’s face flits from combative to confused and right back to a frown that says, _Don't fuck with me._ Still, there’s something _pleased_ about the way she straightens her shoulders.

 

 

Ben tries not to spy on whatever it is they’re fighting about. But they’re _loud_ , and it is his house, he reasons.

“If you don’t see him off you’re going to be kicking your own ass for the next year,” Uma’s voice rises with every word. “It’s not like he’s getting married!”

“Sailing off into the sunset without us? Uma, it’s _as good as_.”

Ben considers grabbing his jacket, passing through the warzone to stand on the front porch until the worst of the mortars have gone off, when Carlos passes through the entryway into the kitchen. Uma freezes then relaxes.

“Hey, Uma.” Carlos shakes out his umbrella. It must have started raining in the short interim between their walk and now.

“Hey.” Uma takes a steadying breath, turning back towards Harry. “Just...be ready to leave tomorrow.” Harry settles back into the kitchen barstool, arms crossed tighter than before and refusing to meet her eyes. “Or don’t. I'll be here at five, _whatever_.”

Carlos waits for the slam of the door to pick up his keys again, playing with a plastic Lego figure hanging from one of the circles. “So...Gil’s leaving the Isle?”

The sound Harry’s chair makes is grating and Ben doesn’t bother protesting as Harry makes a sharp V in the opposite direction of Carlos’ room, locking himself behind Ben’s door. He'd stopped leaving anything embarrassing out after the third time he came home to find Harry rifling through their mail with no regard for a little thing called privacy.

“Who’s Gil?”

Carlos is staring at Ben’s door, his lips twisted into an unhappy line. “That's a long story. Want a drink?”

Ben laughs. “Sure.”

The place they go to, Vita Vite, is one Mal introduced them to. Ben thinks it’s dingy—sticky floors and bad beer—but Carlos loves it in that inexplicable way that bright things are drawn to dark places.

“Gil and Uma have been with Harry since before I knew him. Went to school together on the other side of the Isle,” Carlos says, beer in one hand, texting with the other. “As miserable as they can be with other people, they’re great with one another.”

“What’s her deal with you?”

“She hates me.” Carlos sets his phone down and Ben winces internally. He has no idea what’s on that table but he knows it’s unhygienic. “It’s my fault Harry got hurt, and he still comes to me when stuff like,” he motions to the bar, “his life happens.”

“She’s still mad at you about the accident?” Ben leans back in his chair, rolling his beer between his hands. “You were _kids_.”

Carlos bites the corner of his lip before he draws in a deep breath. “We were kids who fought a lot. A lot less after the accident, I’ll admit. He was supposed to get better, but his dad couldn’t afford a longer stay in the hospital; nobody at the wharf could. So he still has some bad spells.”

“Bad?”

“The drinking was the worst of it for a while.” Carlos finishes his own drink and stares into it like it’s betrayed him. “Uma wouldn’t let him near anything really hard, not that he didn’t try. She made sure to tell me that last bit. So, you know, that’s my fault too, I guess.”

Ben isn’t certain he’s meant to hear the last of Carlos’ words, with the way he wraps his lips back around the bottle and mutters them like a petulant child. His phone buzzes and he raises an eyebrow, flipping it over to read what’s been sent.

“Gil’s nice, though.” He turns the phone to face Ben. A sprawling message from someone named ‘CJ’. “Met some guy named _Henry Turner_. Apparently they’re sailing down the coast for a while. Might go back to the Caribbean to find a place to live near his mother.”

“Harry didn’t seem happy about it.”

“That’s because he’s leaving without the Isle’s _two best sailors_!” Carlos holds a hand to his chest, mocking Harry’s loftier affectation. “How _dare_ he? Doesn’t he know that they won the Junior League Sailing Tournament three years in a row?”

“Really?”

“No,” Carlos snorts. “I mean, _yes_ , he and Uma do have, like, a million sailing trophies, but that’s not why he’s being such a dick. He just doesn’t want to be left behind.”

Ben smiles, clicking his bottle against Carlos’ to draw his attention. “Does anyone?”

 

 

The door to Ben’s room is still closed when they return. Carlos shoots Ben a sympathetic look, brushing past him to rap on the door in an erratic pattern. “Harry. Ben needs sleep and I need to talk to you.”

“I’m coming in.” Ben opens the door with a chuckle because it’s still his room and, whatever privacy Harry wants he’ll have to find it elsewhere. “Huh.”

“What’s wrong?” Carlos is tugging his shoulder from behind.

The trouble is no one is in the room. Ben steps fully inside allowing Carlos a greater range of vision. He immediately turns and sprints in the opposite direction.

“Not in my room.” Carlos appears in the door a few moments later, red garment in hand. “His jacket’s still here.”

_Meow._

“Carlos...,”

“I’m going to text Uma. Maybe he already went to meet her,” he says followed by a truly imaginative string of curses Ben never would have predicted from Carlos.

“ _Carlos_.”

“What?”

“A cat.”

Ben points to his bed. Stood at the end on all four paws, and hissing wildly, is a black and grey cat.

“Some sort of tabby.” Carlos inches into the room. “Go get some of the leftover chicken from last night.”

Ben’s head is in the fridge when he hears a crash and a shout.

“I thought you were good with animals!” He hopes his tone comes out more confused than accusatory.

“I _am_ ,” Carlos doesn’t bother with his jacket, sliding down the hall and grabbing the door handle. “It turned around and _unlatched the freaking window_!”

“How the hell did it know how to do that?”

“Does this sound like the panicked voice of a man who knows the answer, Benjamin?” Carlos shouts over his shoulder. “Come _on_ , it can’t have gotten far.”

It is still raining, which greatly impedes any effort they make at tracking the small beast. Still, Carlos has them circle the block twice before he gives up, pulling out his phone and texting the shelter and his professor while he’s stood inside the door and Ben goes to fetch them towels. He would think a random stray wouldn’t call for a triple manhunt, but maybe the fact that it can open locks calls for some extra attention.  

“Well, that was an adventure,” Ben laughs, handing Carlos a towel. Carlos stares at it, swallowing hard. Ben takes it back and drapes it over his head, scrubbing as hard as he can without doing any real damage. Carlos’ thumb is hovering over his recently sent texts. “Any word from Uma?”

“She says she hasn’t heard from him.” Carlos’ voice is muffled but, even from where Ben’s standing he can tell the other man is crying.

“He’s probably just gone to get something to eat.”

“He’s left his jacket before. It’s just wishful thinking.” Carlos coughs to hide what must be a great gulp of air. “It’s only, he didn’t even say goodbye this time. _Jackass._ ”

Ben hugs him without quite thinking it through. The history of what these people have...he can't even begin to imagine; can't scratch the surface of the depth of those feelings.

“You and your friends…,” Ben shakes Carlos a little in the circle of his arms. He’s not standing totally still, but it’s a near thing. “I feel like you're so _lucky_. I don’t have anyone outside of my family I care enough about that I think ‘wow it would change my life if they left’. That's pretty solid.”

Ben isn’t sure how long it takes but, eventually, Carlos nods.

“We should get a dog,” Ben says, when they’re circling the kitchen for something to eat and struggling to regain normalcy. “Do you want a dog?”

Carlos stares down the kitchen galley and smiles.

 

 

There is a black and gray tabby outside Ben’s office the next morning.

“Hello, you,” Ben holds his keyfob up, waiting to hear the click before he swings the door open. The cat, who seemed to have been waiting for just this, weaves between his ankles and tears through the office. Luckily, this early there are a scarce number of employees. “You...can’t be the same cat.”

He eventually finds it in the break room, sniffing around the lockers and mewing pathetically.

“Aw, hey you.” Ben sets his bag aside. “I’ve got a friend who’s really worried about you. Are you hungry?”

Ben can’t believe his eyes at first; it’s _definitely_ the same cat. And it’s looking at him...and changing. It’s features elongate, fur falling away until it’s forced to drop its head. Ben backs away as it grows in size; for a startled moment he thinks some disease must be eating the creature from the inside, but he’s not heard of anything that works so fast and quite like this.

And it’s still growing.

Larger and larger in size until it’s a huddled, shivering person. A person Ben recognizes.

“... _Harry_?”

Harry’s head snaps up. His eyes are wide, pupils dilated to an extraordinary degree.

“Ben, is everything okay?” One of their new hires, Lonnie enters the break room to the sight of Harry dragging Ben out and away from it.

“It’s fine, Lonnie, thank you!” Ben takes control of the situation, twisting his arm to grab Harry’s wrist and tug him a few paces back, into his office.

“What the hell?” Ben shuts the door. “I mean...what the _hell_?”

“You know those weekends I was gone?” Harry is speaking fast, breath uneven, like he’s afraid. “I was doing some experiments—”

“ _Experiments_?”

“ _Yes_!” Harry hisses, equally panicked. “You have to listen! A company called Quest Industries They told me…,” Harry’s jaw clenches. Ben isn’t sure if it’s from the effort to stay human-shaped or because he doesn’t want to say anything more. _Bad spells_ , Carlos had told Ben. “Look it doesn’t matter what they said, what matters is that I can’t control it and the building I used to go to is _gone_.”

Ben opens his mouth but he can hear Evie moving down the hall before he sees her silhouette in the door, and braces himself. He knows she won’t knock. “Ben! Lonnie said you were dragged in here by a mesh-covered-- _Harry_! I thought you left.”

“Evie!” It is a testament to how scared Harry must be that he sounds relieved to see her. And then he turns into a cat again.

“Oh! God! What?” Evie slams the door shut behind her. “What the hell is going on?”

“You’re...about as caught up as I am, Eves.” Ben looks around, then back down at...Harry. “If I pick you up, are you going to change back in my arms?”

Harry hisses at him.

“Fine I won’t lift you, but you have to follow me.”

“The back way,” Evie says, half-dazed. “Come on, I’ll tell Lonnie that you’re treating the new hires to Guasaca.”

“Dad’s gonna love that bill.”

“You have a better idea?”

Sadly, he doesn’t. “Can you look up Quest Industries?”

“What is it?”

“Scientists?” Ben guesses, and hears no objection from the creature at his feet. “The reason Harry’s in this mess, apparently.”

“According to my search, Quest Industries is a construction company.” Evie nearly trips over Harry as he turns to take a swipe at her. “Calm down. Carlos might be able to find out more.”

 

 

“Quest Industries was the building you were in. Partnered with a company called Hookshow.” Carlos turns the laptop around, protesting lightly as the ball of fluff that is Harry, jumps from his lap and onto the keyboard, tapping a few buttons in the process.

“What do they do?”

“Knock it off.” Carlos lifts Harry underneath his front legs and sets him down on the kitchen counter. “According to this, pharmaceuticals.” Behind his screen Harry starts up on a low hissing. “ _But_ there’s a few secondary sites I’m not able to get to. Mal’s still in touch with Jordan right?” he asks, receiving a nod from Evie. “Call her. She might be able to find something out.”

“And what do we do about him,” Ben squats to catch Harry at eye level, knees folded slightly.

“I mean, I guess I could make sure he’s immunized.” Harry takes an ineffectual swipe at Carlos. “I’m sorry, do you _want_ rabies?”

“I have a question,” Evie’s eyes are on the clock. “Who’s gonna tell Uma?”

 

 

“Are you sure?” Uma tilts her head, legs splayed on the couch. She lifts Harry to examine him closer. “It just looks like a cat to me.”

“I saw it,” Ben confirms. Evie raises a hand.

“Me too. Much as I wish I hadn’t.”

“Gil’s gonna be pissed. He's allergic to cats.”

“Gil doesn’t do pissed,” Carlos says, sitting beside Uma in the most friendly display Ben’s witnessed between the two. “ _I_ was pissed; I thought he’d already left. I guess being a cat is a good enough excuse to take off without saying anything.”

“Better than that time you begged out of helping me win fourth consecutive Junior Championship because your tongue was down someone else’s throat.” Harry struggles out of Uma’s arms with a hiss. “Hey. It _is_ him.”

“Wasn’t that Jay?” Carlos leans over the back of the couch to ask Evie.

“I’m _sure_ I wouldn’t know.” Evie flips a portion of her hair over her shoulder.

“It was Jay,” Carlos directs his nod at Harry who plods from Uma’s knees to Carlos’ lap and starts making loud mewling sounds in an obvious attempt to respond.

“There has to be a way to talk to him.” Uma’s restlessness gets the better of her as she stands to pace. “A computer or something.”

“Not mine.” Carlos presses both hands against Harry’s ears, pulling them down and back in a firm pet, effectively silencing him for the moment. “I can probably throw something together, though. For when he needs to tell us something important or, you know...change the channel.”

“I’ll go explain to Gil what’s going on.” Uma bends over double, hands on her hips, to stare Harry down. “I hope you’re happy. He probably _will_ cancel his expedition over this.”

Ben wants to step between them but, luckily, he doesn’t have to, as Carlos does instead, shooting her a perplexed look. “Uma. He’s a _cat_.”

“He did it on purpose and that’s no excuse,” Uma straightens. “If you let him get away with things just because he's a cat he'll walk all over you. You're lucky this happened before he could take all your food and money and if you're not careful he'll _still_ manage it.”

Carlos doesn’t say anything in response to that, but Ben thinks it may be due to the fact that, halfway through her tirade, Uma had plucked Harry from his lap and is, even now, petting him. Ben’s no expert on cat facial features, but if he had to guess he’d say Harry looks enormously pleased with himself.

 

 

This is how Carlos and Harry find themselves shopping for a litter box, Harry nestled snugly in the front of the shopping cart.

“Are you not the least bit embarrassed that we’re going to be picking up after you?” Carlos has asked a variation on this question several times, and eventually gives up the ghost when Harry leaps from the cart to rub up against pirate accessories for a fish tank they don’t have.

“Excuse me, sir?” A girl holding a bag of crickets who looks fresh out of high school approaches them with mixed wariness and apology. Must have drawn the short straw between the employees. “You’ll need to have that cat on a leash or in a carrier. Sorry.”

“That’s fine,” Ben smiles in a way he hopes is reassuring. “It’s only we don’t have anything like that. You see we...found him?”

“Gosh, the poor thing!” She leans in to get a closer look, setting the crickets on top of a nearby tub that contains--Ben swallows and looks away--more crickets. Harry pulls back with a startled mewl at first, but tentatively allows her to place a hand on his head. “Wait here, I’ll go grab a box from pet care.”

The box was just that; a cardboard box with the store’s logo plastered on the side, and three air holes only large enough for a paw to escape. After the shop girl’s attempts to cajole him left her with a fresh bite on her hand, and Harry himself steadfastly refused to step inside, Ben tries reasoning with him.

“You have to go in there, or we’re going to get kicked out,” he says, only to have Harry step further away and weave himself around Carlos’ ankle. After a moment of indecision, Carlos bends to pick him up, letting him rest on his shoulder. Ben releases a breath. “Where are the _nice_ carriers, Miss?”

After throwing a moderately inexpensive carrier, see-through and covered in purple, into his cart, he meanders through the aisles, plucking an assortment of colorful toys he thinks Harry might like and tossing them in as well. When he finds Carlos and Harry again, they’re by the dogs, Harry slumped over Carlos’ shoulder, away from the other creatures and looking thoroughly defeated (though Ben may be projecting).

“I see Carlos talked you into a leash.” Ben tugs at the thin, red collar around Harry’s neck, receiving a nip at his fingertip for the trouble. “I think it looks nice.”

“I just hope he doesn’t change back into a person while he’s wearing it,” Carlos says, offhand, eyes still on the dogs. “Cause of death? Accidental asphyxiation by cat collar.”

“Not flattering,” Ben agrees, though having seen Harry transform he’s fairly sure the thing would just pop right off of him. He follows the line of Carlos’ sight. “I was serious about getting a dog.”

Between them, Harry yowls. Carlos leans away as far as he’s able whilst still being clung to by an ornery tabby.

“I appreciate it,” Carlos manages through gritted teeth. “After we take care of this, maybe.”

It’s easy for Ben to pay, with Carlos still burdened by Harry’s seemingly never ending supply of lethargy. It’s less easy for him to drive when that lethargy turns out to be contained to the space of the store and Harry decides Ben’s backseat is the best place to release all of his pent up energy.

“Please be careful.” Ben adjusts the mirror to catch the literal tail end of Harry vaulting from the window back to the floorboard.

“Here.” Carlos throws one of the sparklier toys with a lot of crinkle to it on the backseat. “Play with that.”

Harry presses both paws against the console.

“What? You liked sparkly things when you _weren't_ a cat. Go nuts!”

There is a worrying amount of silence for a car transporting a cat, which is soon replaced by the sound of crinkling.

 

 

When they open the toys at home, Harry is immediately transfixed by a bit of fluff meant to be in the shape of tuna.

“SmartyKat...Catnip?” Carlos sets the last item down between them. “You bought Harry _drugs_?”

“I mean,” Ben picks it up turning it around to read the label. “It’s organic.”

Harry spends the next few hours oscillating between playing with each new toy, making chittering noises that freak everyone (including Harry himself) out, and lying beneath the lone window of their living room as the sun goes down and, eventually, disappears. This is when Ben notices the similarities and differences between Harry-as-cat and Harry-as-human. Both stare at  the television for long stretches of time, unblinking, and sleep in odd places, and steal his food. On the other hand, the stream of activity between sleep, and his constant presence, the playful, vocal nature, that's new.

"No. No, it's very much _not_ ,” Carlos refutes him when Ben says as much aloud. “Harry was moping the past two weeks. Ben, meet the real Harry in cat form."

They’re in the middle of a _Monk_ rerun when Harry abruptly shifts back into his human self.

“ _Christ_!” He stretches, whatever small amount of clothing he had been wearing the last time falling away, off his shoulders and hips, in threads and ribbons. Sciencey voodoo and cotton don’t mix, apparently, is the only delirious thought Ben has as he gropes behind the couch to find the blanket that’s fallen somewhere behind them.

Harry, meanwhile, is pacing, barely looking up to catch the blanket and wrap it around his shoulders. “Do _not_ touch my tail, and if you ever order from Cafe Miami again I will piss on all the clothes you own. Maybe _you_ can’t smell whatever foul odor that food leaves behind, but this nose?” Harry points to the nose in question. “Sure as hell can.”

He’s not done, and Ben stares in mute fascination while Carlos, who’s tugged his laptop over, is typing everything out like a dutiful scholar (School of Cat to Human Transmutation). It’s mostly empty threats. The only big takeaway that Ben commits to memory is that Harry is to be let out of the house a few times a day--carrier-free--and leashes are apparently off the table as well.

“And another thing...no.” Harry’s eyes go wide. “Shit, no, _no_!”

Between one breath and another, he’s a cat again.

“How often do you think this is going to happen?” Ben asks Carlos, delicately extracting a writhing and hissing Harry from under the blanket at their feet.

Carlos is still typing. “We’ll keep a log of the times. That should help us,” he adds, more reassuring, presumably for Harry’s benefit. “Until we fix it.”

 

 

Fera’s Reading Carriages has been in the business of traveling libraries since before Ben was born; an idea his mother had sparked and his father had helped implement. And, whenever his dad is working out of the home office in Portugal, the place wouldn't run without Ben or Evie to oversee it. So it’s no surprise when she rushes him at the door, a quick glance at the carrier in his hand. “Did you have to?”

“Being the boss’ son has to come with some perks.” He lifts the carrier to her eye level so Harry can yell at her properly. “Besides Carlos had class.”

Evie isn’t staring at the hissing, near-uncontrollable carrier anymore; her gaze is firmly fixed on Ben and it’s the piercing look she gives him when he’s spent more time than he ought untangling pages of legalese.

“I'll take a half day. Promise.” He crosses his heart like he always does. “I mostly came in to…,”

 _Make sure the interns don't think I’m a depraved lunatic, who keeps half-naked men in my office_.

“Check in,” he finishes weakly.

“Lonnie didn’t say anything,” Evie tells him on a sigh. “Your secret’s safe with us.”

“Great,” he smiles. “I’ll just finish the paperwork for the new bookmobile in Ohio and then I’ll—”

She takes him by the shoulders, turning him bodily back towards the door. “You’ll take the _whole_ day, Ben. I can handle this place.”

She doesn’t speak again until Ben has Harry in the car, the door closed, though that doesn’t stop the yowling. Her eyes flick over his shoulder. “How is he?”

“I mean…,” Ben flips through a number of possible responses before settling on, “A cat?”

“Not Harry, ugh.” Her nose wrinkles adorably. “Carlos.”

“He’s fine.” Ben feels his own face wrinkle. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

“Because, for reasons beyond my understanding, he cares about what happens to _him_.”

“Stop pretending to be heartless.” Ben pushes weakly at her shoulder, but she’s dramatic enough to take a step back with a wounded look. “You care. Enough to put Mal on the case.”

“The case of the man who turned himself into a cat, yes.” Evie’s eyes roll so hard, he’s afraid she’ll get a headache from the effort.

“He had a problem.” Ben leans against the door, remembering what Carlos had told him about the accident. “He thought some men in coats with new medicine was the answer.”

“I guess,” Evie concedes, a little unhappily. “I know why I’m helping--asshole Harry may be, but it’s true what you said--he’s still one of _us_. You don’t have to do all of this, Ben.”

“Sure I do.” Ben doesn’t miss a beat, rounds the car and gives her his best winning smile. “I mean, I get why he did it, you know?”

If she was unhappy before, Evie looks downright shamefaced now. Ben hates the expression; it’s completely unsuited to her. “I’m sorry, Ben, I didn’t think.”

“I didn’t say that to make you feel guilty, Eves,” he laughs. “I just meant I understand.”

Evie’s expression shifts to something more sympathetic. She bends to knock on Harry’s window. “I’ll send Mal by later. Be good, you mongrel.”

 

 

Fridays are usually his day to go to the hospital, but he has a feeling he's going to be busy in the coming weeks. It won't hurt to break pattern.

“Hey, Ben. Nice surprise.” Jay nods in greeting, coming around the desk to toss an arm over his shoulder. “Your mom’s gonna be stoked.”

For as long as he's been coming here, Jay's been a steady presence. A patient, a volunteer, and now working his way up in the nursing program.

“That Harry?” He’s bent over, staring into the carrier and trying very hard not to laugh.

“Yep,” Ben says, wondering when the reality of the situation will hit him, if it ever will.

“Hah.” When Jay does laugh, it comes out sharp and disbelieving. “No shit?”

“Can I take him out for Mom?”

Jay shrugs, a near instinctual gesture built up from years of practice. “Your dad pays for the West Wing. I figure you can do whatever the hell you want as long as it doesn't hurt the patients.”

“Thanks.” Ben grasps his shoulder in that firm familiar way his dad used to do when he was home more often and wanted to show affection. “I _think_ she likes cats.”

Jay returns the gesture, hand on shoulder, easy smile. “Don't worry, man. It's a good day.”

His mother’s back is turned when Ben finds her in the massive library they've built for her. _Reading helps with memory_ , Dad had explained over and over again. He's not sure if it's true but she does love books. That's important, especially on the not so good days.

He puts Harry's carrier on the floor and releases him, gray blur immediately leaping from its prison and streaking across the room. It's going to be a pain catching him again, but Ben doesn't have time to worry about it because his mother is speaking.

“You're not one of the doctors,” she says like she’s solving a puzzle. She closes the book in her hand with a little smile on her face. There are tiny wrinkles all around her lips and eyes so, whatever else has happened, she must be smiling a lot. “You must be someone I know.”

“It’s okay if you don't remember.” Ben sits on the couch and she joins him. She always smells like the perfume that Dad sends with her things. He’s never been able to figure out the scent; some sort of flower he’s never found in the gardens of the college he attended anyway. “Don't force it.”

She looks unsure of him, so he takes her hand and nods until she relaxes into another smile. “What are you reading?”

He’s heard about this one before, he realizes, somewhere between the description of the protagonist and his mother’s version of a book blurb. But it’s been a few years since she’s picked it up and the story sounds fresh, especially how she tells it. She’s getting excited about the place she just bookmarked--a turn of phrase she felt particularly drawn to--when she interrupts herself to ask:

“Is that a cat?”

Harry has crept out from wherever he was hiding, is staring at the two of them, tail flicking back in a lazy snap. Left _snap_ right, left _snap_ right.

“Yes,” Ben motions to Harry who stalks closer until he’s able to leap on the couch between them. “Belle? This is Harry.”

Harry allows Belle to coo over him, remarking at the softness of his fur and the sweetness of his nose and ears. Ben suspects Harry must love the attention. Carlos and he never comment much on his appearance as a cat; it feels a bizarre thing to do. After a time, Harry settles on her lap in a perfect position to fall asleep. Ben hopes, with the sort of realistic desperation of a man sitting beside his mother and wishing to avoid any awkwardness, that Harry does not transform into a human now.

“Ben,” she says raking her fingers through the fur across Harry's back.

Ben feels something in his chest loosen, scooting closer to her by the few inches that remain. “Hey, Mom.”

She looks at him, fond and a little disoriented. “When can I go home?”

“Dad’s coming home next Sunday, so not long.”

Her chin dips and rises, once, twice, understanding coming to her in slow, lapping waves. The second time she focuses on Harry. “When did you get a cat?”

“He wandered in a few weeks ago,” he tells her, glad he can be honest. “My roommate and I are taking care of him for now, that’s all.”

“That’s how all the best pet stories start,” she finally manages a small chuckle. “I didn't know you liked cats.”

“I didn’t know you liked cats!” His laugh is all relief, pent up since he’d stepped through the door. _Will she remember me today/I swear it doesn’t matter/What if she never remembers me again/It’ll be okay._

“Do I? I suppose I must!” His mom has always had a positively _wicked_ sense of humor about her condition when she’s lucid. Today, Ben can’t help laughing along with her.

 

 

By the time Jay comes to collect them, the sun is setting. Thanks to Belle’s calming influence, it takes a matter of moments to corral Harry back into the carrier.

“Do you think being gone longer would help?” he asks before they reach the doors and he misses his chance. “She did really well today, and Dad’s been gone for two weeks.”

“I don't know.” Jay rubs the back of his neck and stares, pointedly, in the opposite direction.

“Jay, be honest.”

“Yesterday, she tried to pick you up from daycare,” he shrugs that well-known shrug. “You know there's just no predicting these things. I'm sorry.”

“No, I know.” Ben does know and wishes he didn’t. “Thanks.”

Harry meows softly from the carrier and Ben unzips it after they're safely in the car. He’d been docile enough, and seems like he’ll sit still now.

“You have to promise not to move around.” Ben starts the car. “I’m sure there’s a terrible statistic out there about cats and car accidents.”

Harry puts one paw on his leg and looks...as apologetic as a cat can look. _Projecting,_ Ben reminds himself.

He laughs, easing some of the worry that’s knotting itself back in his chest again. “ _She_ didn't get into a car accident. She just has early onset dementia. She can’t be left at home alone while Dad’s away. Yes, Carlos knows.” Harry is still kneading his paws near Ben’s pocket. “And, yes, I’ve been tested. Statistically more likely but looking fine.”

Harry cries louder, claws digging into Ben’s thigh.

“Ow.” Ben stops laughing, extracting Harry and putting him in the back seat. “I'm sorry I can't think of what else you'd want to know.”

When they get home, for the first time since Carlos hooked it up, Harry pads over to the calculator turned cat-notepad and painstakingly types out, _r u ok_.

Carlos lowers the milk jug he's been pouring from. “What happened?”

“Nothing. Just went to see my mom.”

“Oh.” Carlos recaps the milk, spins it slowly on the counter. “... _Are_ you okay?”

Ben leans over the counter, distracting Carlos just long enough to steal his cup with a reassuring smile. “I'm fine.”

 

 

“I had to see it for myself.” Ben holds Harry back behind his front legs as Mal chuckles in his face. “You know, you’re cuter like this. Don’t know why you wanna change back.”

“Did you bring it?”

Mal hands Carlos a hard drive. “She’ll talk to you, and only you, _once_. She doesn’t like being summoned you know?”

“I wouldn’t do it if it weren’t important,” Carlos assures her.

“Just be careful.” Mal runs a hand over his head, much more gentle with Carlos than the actual cat in their midst.

Carlos disappears in his room once more, leaving Ben to entertain Mal. She’s never needed him for that though, a fact made all the more obvious as she cracks open his liquor cabinet and roots around for the whiskey she wants, only speaking to him when she’s back on the couch, boots propped on the table. Like Evie, the moment Carlos moved in with Ben was the moment Mal had granted herself access to their home with a familiarity sometimes bordering on intrusion. Ben thinks of Harry, wonders if _all_ of Carlos’ friends--if there are any he hasn’t met yet--are like this. Ben doesn’t mind, he likes the company, but it’s an interesting comparison to the polite etiquette around which he was raised.

“Real talk—”

“So who is Jordan—”

They speak at the same time and Ben (full of polite etiquette) defers with a nod. “Real talk,” she repeats, points the bottle of Teacher’s at Harry. “What am I dealing with here? Like can he understand me? Harry brain in a cat body? Cat brain with instinctual...Harry-ness?”

Ben expects Harry to answer, but Harry barely moves from the spot by Carlos’ door, where he’s been laid out and looking pathetic since it closed. Ben steps over the table to fetch the notepad Carlos made and hands it back to her, the last message Harry sent them (a shorthand request to watch _The Golden Girls_ ) still inscribed.

“That’s Harry.” Mal tosses the notepad on the table with the sort of force that makes Ben worry, considering the electronics involved and how little he understands them. “Hey dickweed, stop ignoring me.”

Harry rolls on his stomach, squinting at her over his shoulder, considering. After a moment he plods over to the couch and pulls himself up, curling around in Ben’s lap, the way he had for his mother.

“Here.” Mal sets aside the whiskey--Ben notes that she hasn’t actually taken a drink; an object of comfort maybe?--and holds her phone underneath Harry’s nose. Ben can’t make out the words behind the tuft of fur that is his neck, but he sees enough to know it’s a group text. Sent a week ago between _Uma, Mal, Jay,_ and the still unknown _Gil_. “I wouldn’t normally show you these but...Evie said you were, what, going to get help when this happened? Just wanted you to know you had friends who were worried about you while you did that without telling anyone.”

Harry sticks his paw on the phone and meows. It doesn’t have a tone to it, so Ben pretends it sounds grateful.

“Dumbass.” There’s no heat behind the word, like it’s a requirement, and shoves her phone back into her shirt. “Isn’t that weird?”

“What?”

Mal tips her chin towards Harry, who’s settled back on Ben’s legs. “I mean, he’s technically sitting on your lap.”

“Not technically, Mal,” Ben blanks his expression as much as he’s able. “By the definitions of ‘sit’ and ‘lap’.”

“No I mean—,” she leans forward to pick up the Teacher’s again and stops halfway there, smile lighting her face. “ _Ben_. Are you fucking with me?”

“Don’t know what you mean.” Ben loses a battle against his own smile.

“I’m so proud of you,” she drops back on the couch, hitting his chest with the knuckles of her hand. “Jordan’s kind of an expert at everything,” she says, and it takes him a moment to understand she’s finally answering his question. “When I left the Isle to find where those psych ward assholes took Jay, she helped me with my paperwork. She likes Islanders, but the sort of work she does, it’s...”

“Unconventional?” Ben supplies.

“I knew you’d have a nice word for it.”

She doesn’t reach for the whiskey again, and Harry doesn’t move from Ben’s lap when Ben stretches to get the remote and flip on the television. Mal’s preference, he finds, leans towards the dramatic, long form stories that his grandmother devoured in his youth (though those were all in Portuguese). Mal is criticizing someone named Richard, who has too easily fallen into a triple cross by his ex-lover, Cassandra, when Carlos emerges, looking as overwhelmed as Ben feels.

“What’d you find out?” Mal leverages herself up with both palms in one fluid motion. Harry is already one leap ahead of her, winding himself around Carlos’ legs and sitting himself solidly between Mal and he.

“Jordan is _amazing_ ,” Carlos smiles wide. “I hope I get a chance to work with her after college.”

“Carlos,” Mal snaps in the space between his eyes. “What did you find out _about Harry_?”

“Right.” Carlos takes his laptop to the kitchen, opening it for them to see and hopping on the stool in front of it. “Hookshow was started by someone named Doctor Facilier. He’s no longer in business; has a long line of malpractice suits that even Jordan couldn’t unearth the details of.”

“Hence the construction front.” Ben lifts Harry to sit on the counter beside the screen.

“Here’s what’s really interesting,” Carlos directs this at Harry. “The person he had listed as his company’s _provider_ was your dad.”

Harry steps onto the keypad and Carlos, as though predicting this, shoots an arm out to protect the keys from his onslaught.

“I was _thinking_ ,” he finally manages to tug Harry onto his lap, “There might be something at your old house. Or what’s left of it.”

Mal stiffens beside Ben. “You’re going back to the Isle?”

Carlos swings his legs around on the stool and clicks his heels together. “No place like home.”

 

 

The ferry over to the Isle is actually a small dinghy, but large enough to carry their small contingent, including the purple carrier between Carlos and Ben, from which emits a low growl of discontent.

“Do you think cats get seasick?” Ben leans over the carrier to look in, feeling the boat rock beneath him.

“He’s being dramatic,” Evie tosses over her shoulder. “The man makes a living through the IGPC. He just wants to be let out.”

“IGPC?” Ben sits back up, arms across the seat and over Carlos’ shoulder.

“Isle Guard and Prosperity Commission.” Carlos looks up from his phone with a rueful grin. “Private company; Isle-born, Isle-run. You probably only hear about them when they clash with the Auradon Navy.”

Ben nods like he understands. He does, on a literal level, but the idea of needing a private guard because the Navy might not take care of you, that’s baffling to him. Then Harry makes a keening noise of distress and he remembers that baffling is the flavor of the week. He also decides to forego Evie’s usually good advice and lets Harry out, where he immediately hops on Carlos’ leg to balance against the side of the boat, clearly fine.

Evie doesn’t even look back. “I _told_ you so.”

“You did,” Ben laughs, unruffled. “Harry, please don’t fall in.”

The road to Harry’s old home is largely unpaved and it’s another reminder of how different Ben grew up from the Islanders. Uma is leaning against the mailbox, flipping through a large pile of mail. When they greet her, she shoves them all back in the rusted box and doesn’t bother to close it.

“It’s not pretty in there,” she warns them. “It was a dump when Harry moved in with me, and I don’t think his dad did any better keeping it up.”

Uma lifts Harry in her arms the second he finds her boots, staring directly into his face for a few, drawn out seconds. Ben wonders if she’s developed a form of rare cat telepathy since his transformation. Eventually she turns away from all of them to lead them through the front door. “Well, come on. His casa, your casa, and all that.”

 

 

If there’s a system to the mess in the house, it’s one Ben can’t divine. One step above ‘teenage rebellion’ and one below ‘hoarder’, it takes them a while to find the study at the back of Harry’s house, even with Harry’s (only occasionally helpful) direction.

“If you leave me here for a few hours, I think I can make a dent.” Evie stares around the office, weak in the face of so much unorganized paper.

“Not alone you can’t.” Carlos is already taking a seat on the floor. “I’ll start on this end, you take the other.”

“I’ll take Harry to see Gil.” Uma thumbs over her shoulder, gaze directly on Ben. “You coming or staying?”

Ben looks to people he’s more familiar with. Evie’s already pulled her hair back into the bun she dons most often at work. Carlos gives him a warm smile, shifting a stack of paper to the inside of his elbow.

“You should go," he motions to the door. “Let her show you around the Isle while we’re busy.”

“That’s generous of me,” Uma scoffs. “Come on then.”

Ben learns more about the Isle in five minutes walking with Uma than four years of high school and one semester of the required Incorporated Territories course. That’s probably not true, he reasons, considering he’s lived with Carlos for almost a year now and has been friends with Jay and Evie for longer. But it feels different seeing the place they all talk about like a bad smell.

Uma walks ahead of him, Harry trailing her heels. Her braids are pulled away from her face, into an organized waterfall between her shoulders, the blue and green that fades into black mesmerizing. There is a patch on her left shoulder with the thick, threaded letters,  _IGPC_.

“So, You work for the Isle Guard with Harry?”

She stops walking just long enough to let him catch up. “Sure do. I didn’t get _proper_ Auradon Navy training, like him and Gil, but I think I do all right for myself.”

“Harry was in the Navy?” Harry makes a low meow that sounds unimpressed.

“A lot of our people join. Gives you certain benefits.”

“Like what?”

“Spies and good dealers, mostly. Give us a cut of trade, keep us out of trouble.” She shoves her hands in her pocket, leaning back as she walks. It’s an odd pose in the way it makes her gait change, jerky and marionette-like. “So, Twenty Questions, my turn. How’d you meet Carlos?”

“He needed a roommate, and I had the space.”

“Hard to picture that kid in such a big city.”

In his second year of college, wedged between Jay and Mal at the Vita Vite, Carlos _had_ been practically a kid when Ben met him.

“It’ll be good for both of you,” the Evie in his memory sets a drink in front of him, carefully wrapping a napkin along the outside. “You spend too much time alone in that big, drafty house.”

“It’s not even fifteen hundred square feet, Eves.” Ben takes a tentative sip of alcohol that tastes like carbonated copper, and looks at Carlos. “It’s _not_ big.”

Carlos is wide-eyed, _awed_. “No that, that’s _amazing_.”

Ben thinks of Carlos now, moving from room to room, toast hanging from his mouth, eyes glued to his laptop and completely at home. He trips on a loose stone, and Uma grabs his elbow, raises an eyebrow.

“He’s adjusted,” Ben laughs.

“He used to live across the road from Harry. Pretty close to the main road. I can show you, when we get back.” They have to pause to let a car turn out of a parking lot. Ben’s seen more of those, and he thinks they may be getting closer to town, closer to port. The sea smell is stronger; a mix of bilge and brine. She takes the opportunity to bend at the waist and throw a boneless-seeming Harry over one shoulder. “He tell you about the accident?”

With Carlos being the topic of conversation, there can only be one ‘accident’ she’s referring to, so Ben nods.

“Yeah, I’ll bet with how curious you are. Either of them tell you what happened?” If Harry cares about being discussed as though he’s not there, the only outward sign Ben can make out is a slight tightening of Uma’s shoulders where his claws have hooked themselves into the skin of her shoulder.

“None of my business, Uma.” He stops her from saying more. She looks him over, thoroughly disbelieving. “I like to know about my friends. What _they_ want me to know.”

There is a shouting by the docks that draws her eyes, if not her attention. “That’s sweet.” The way she says it is slightly condescending. She wants him to know he’s being mocked.

Ben shields his eyes against the glint of sun against metal ships, just able to make out a pair in the distance, the person on the right waving wildly. “Is that…?”

“Hey, Gil!” Uma throws her free arm up to wave back, somewhat less enthusiastically.

Gil is not at all what Ben was expecting. He’s all muscles, for one, where Harry is wiry and lean. His hair is long, and dishwater blonde, and well-maintained in a way that adds to the already striking effect of ‘romance book cover’. It’s an image that is somewhat ruined by the way his eyes water at the lower lids, filling with light red lines.

“Harry,” he manages between a bout of sneezing. “What did you do to yourself?”

Harry shakes himself from neck to tail, dander floating in lazy puffs in the low sunlight.

The other man, who had disappeared onto the deck of one of the few wooden ships in the bay at their approach, walks down to join them now, two pink pills in his hand that Gil quickly palms and swallows.

“Benadryl,” Gil explains to Ben, who must look curious. He’s sniffing violently, trying to clear his eyes. “I’m really allergic to cats.”

“I heard,” Ben holds out a hand, feeling a twinge of sympathy. “I’m Ben.”

“Ben?” Gil rubs the bridge of his nose, brows raised. “You’re Carlos’ boyfriend, right?”

“I’m...his roommate.” Ben turns to Uma. “Boyfriend? Did Evie tell you that? Did _Carlos_ tell you that?”

Uma looks too suspiciously innocent. Harry, meanwhile, has made himself busy, taking swipes at the toes of the second man’s boots with a low mewl of discontent.

“This is Henry Turner.” Uma crosses her arms and Ben thinks that if Harry had transformed into a more sturdy animal that could attack her with conviction, she may have tried kicking him away to stop the onslaught against Henry’s clean, leather boots. “Left the Navy and joined up with us last year. It’s made things a lot more livable around here.”

“Nice to meet you.” Henry gently lifts a leg over Harry to shake Ben’s outstretched hand.

It’s only as Harry is behind Henry that he transforms, immediately tackling him to the ground.

The fight doesn’t last long. Gil stands over them, making distressed noises and, after two unsuccessful attempts at pulling them apart, Ben joins Uma who decided as soon as the whole nonsense started, to sit on a nearby crate. Ben feels mildly guilty to leave Gil alone, holding a now-standing Harry back while Henry looks as though he doesn't want to fight at all.

“You’re not leaving, Gil!” Harry manages to shout at the blonde head by his shoulder before turning back to Henry. “You’re not taking him _adventuring_ while I’m a goddamn cat!”

"I knew he was going to try and make this all about him." Uma mutters, somewhere by Ben’s ear.

She finally steps in when Harry's marginally less winded, Henry wiping off his forehead, affably puzzled.

Uma throws her arms around Harry’s neck and Gil, seeing Harry relax fractionally, lets him go to join her. Ben crosses his legs at the ankles and leans back to look up. This would be another terrible time, he thinks, to change back into a cat. Or a great time, if Gil’s allergy medication has kicked in.

“Took them long enough, eh?” Henry’s voice surprises him. Not a surprise, Ben considers, as all the man has said before now is ‘ _Nice to meet you_ ’. It’s deeply accented in a way he doesn’t often hear. Not Isle, not Auradon. Something entirely different.

“Sorry I don’t actually...know them that well,” Ben admits. “I take it the fighting is rare?”

“Oh no, the fighting happens all the time.” Henry pulls out a handkerchief, wiping it over his face. It looks out of place with what Ben’s seen on the Isle. He _sounds_ out of place. “Especially with me. Usually it’s _just_ me,” he laughs. “And usually they’re all out for fish and chips within the week.”

 _Fish and chips_ , Ben’s lips tug up into a smile, remembering the first time Harry had joined him for dinner. _Must have been missing home._

“Well,” Ben pulls a face. “He was a cat. So.”

“Little leniency, I understand,” Henry slaps a hand against his shoulder and Ben could feel just by the small amount of pressure, there was real strength behind that arm. He’s suddenly very glad he and Harry’s fight had been of the schoolyard variety.

Henry and Ben stay a few feet back from the others as they do exactly what Henry predicted; fish and chips from a local stall, heads together and talking in low voices and loud laughs until the sun drops. It’s the longest Harry’s been human in a while, Ben notes, making a mental checklist of things to tell Carlos to add to his chart of Harry.

“We should head back to town.” Henry throws out his own basket of food. “I’m going to give the ship another check.”

Ben sees him to the end of the dock, knowing it’s as much to give the three their privacy as it has anything to do with ships. Ben doesn’t know much about the sea, but this vessel looks like it's in pretty good shape. Gil and Harry are still speaking when Ben draws up to them.

“I _am_ proud, I just—,” Harry says, so low Ben can barely make it out. “Be careful, okay?”

“You’re not going to see me off?” Gil sounds hurt.

“Gotta get this taken care of,” Harry motions down to himself.

“Yeah, Gil,” Uma throws a hand over Harry’s shoulder, tugging him down. “It’s not all about _you_.”

“Sorry—”

Uma grabs Gil’s face with her free hand, effectively cutting him off. “ _Hush_ , it was a joke.”

Gil smiles under her fingernails, face dimpling and squishing as he turns to Ben. “It was good to meet you, Ben. Tell Carlos hey!”

“Will do,” Ben lifts a hand to wave.

Harry pulls Uma and Gil into a rough hug, holding them there until Uma’s protestations and Gil’s squirming stops. With a cough and a sniff, he eventually pulls away to look at Ben. “What?”

“Nothing,” Ben says, honestly. “Could use some direction back to your house.”

“Come on then,” he grabs him around the shoulder. “Useless.”

 

 

Carlos slides a finger across the forefinger of the opposite hand before pointing both at the floor of the dinghy.

_What happened?_

Ben makes sure Harry and Evie are turned away before signing back. _G-I-L._

Carlos slides over Ben’s lap to sit next to Harry. “Did you and Gil talk?”

Harry lifts his head, staring at Carlos evenly. “We talked.”

“When is he leaving?”

“Tomorrow.”

“That soon?”

“ _Apparently_ Henry was waiting for my blessing. Tell me again how this isn’t like walking my only child down the aisle to someone far less deserving?”

“For one, it’s not an archaic tradition,” Evie half-turns to face him. “And _another_...Gil’s going to do something for the Isle. You should be proud of him.”

Harry presses his chin into his hand to cover his mouth, cheeks a light pink. Ben huffs a laugh.

“Can’t I be proud and pissed?” He presses his shoulder into Carlos, which has the unintended consequence of pressing Carlos’ shoulder into Ben’s. “Leave me alone.”

“Uh, _that’s_ never been our arrangement,” Carlos scoffs.

Harry, as if on cue, turns into a cat.

 

 

“These were all the files Evie and I could find marked _Hookshow_.” Carlos dumps the small stack of files on the arm of their couch. Harry, who has been relatively quiet in exchange for the allowance of riding home outside of the carrier, starts up a low howl by the corner of the fridge.

“Why don’t you let me take a look?” Ben leans over the couch to pluck a few of the pages from the top of the pile. Carlos purses his lips, eyebrows drawing together. Harry is still growling, louder now. “Hey, you may be a genius at finding patterns, but lawsuits? That’s all me.”

Ben lets his eyes eat away at the pages, drowning out the noise of Carlos and a placated Harry from the kitchen behind him. After the third deposition, he can feel a familiar ache start behind his eyes. He may _shine_ at this, but he doesn’t necessarily _enjoy_ it.

“Any luck?” Carlos’ elbow knocks his shoulder where he rests across the back of the couch, face very close to Ben’s own. It isn’t an _unusual_ closeness. They are tactile in a way Ben has never had cause to examine. But Gil said _boyfriend_ , and Ben has to wonder if he’s done something to mislead Carlos.

 _Would that be so terrible,_ a small part of his brain chimes in. Likely the part staring through the corner of his vision at the way Carlos’ hair sweeps across his light brown eyes and the bow of his lips shine from the insane amount of chapstick he uses. Ben turns to stare harder and considers that ‘small part of his brain’ might not be...quite so small.

“Ben?” Carlos says, and it’s evident by his tone that this isn’t the first time he’s called his name. His eyebrows are drawn up like he’s trying not to laugh but his smile is teasing. “Did you find anything?”

“Hospitals claiming this Facilier owed them money for using their equipment, mostly. Someone here talking about copyright law.” He rubs his eyes. Carlos jumps over the couch, hip pressed against Ben's. And it'd be so easy to figure out if he's overthinking things. A matter of simply asking.

“I’ll look up the hospitals.”

Ben’s still working himself up to the right question, so his mind isn’t completely on the task at hand, which is why it takes him nearly half a page to realize he recognizes the name he’s been reading again and again.

Ben tucks the page under his arm, stepping around a mounting pile of toys in the middle of their hallway to grab his jacket.

Carlos turns over the back of the couch to watch him. “Where are you going?”

 _Boyfriend._ Ben’s mind supplies, as unhelpful as ever.

“The person in this deposition, Grenouille. I may know someone in the family. Maybe I can find out more about this Facilier.”

“Need backup?”

“No, just going to grab a cup of coffee.”

 

 

“Hey, it’s not your usual time.” Tyrone looks happy to see him, despite the lateness of the afternoon. Ben likes to think he’s a good tipper.

“It’s an unusual day, but I’m glad you’re working.” Ben waits until an unfamiliar girl has snatched up her croissant before opening the file he brought, laying it in front of Tyrone. “Do you know someone named Doctor Facilier?”

Tyrone stares at Ben, dark eyebrows knitting together. It takes another long moment to lower his eyes. “Where did you get this?”

“The Isle,” Ben tells him. It’s no secret, but Tyrone still looks surprised. “A friend of mine got roped into some pretty shady stuff by the guy. And your name popped up on one of the files. Or, well, I haven’t met many other Grenouilles in Auradon.”

“Katy, I’m taking off early,” Tyrone shouts to the back, sliding the file towards him as he rounds the corner of the bar. Ben sidesteps to meet him, but Tyrone’s attention is focused entirely on the page. “It’s French. Your friend? What kind of shady stuff are you talking about?”

Might as well go for broke, Ben thinks. Either he knows something or he doesn’t. “Let some doctors try some new medicine. Turns him into a cat every once in a while.”

Tyrone sighs. The file in his hand closes, the soft sound of paper against paper. “You’d better come to my house.”

 

 

A small, manicured hand opens the door, only a crack. Tyrone wedges his foot in, pressing hard to pry it open.

“Mom and Dad didn’t say you were coming for dinner.” A familiar-looking girl blocks the doorway, arms crossed.

“Couldn’t let you hog it all.” Tyrone shoves at her shoulder playfully. “I brought a, uh, friend. Lotte, this is Ben.”

“We’ve met.” She opens the door wider to let them in and, toeing off his shoes, Ben realizes they _have_ met, at the pet store. “How’s your cat?” she asks, all knowing grin.

“He doesn’t like the carrier.”

She shrugs, leading them inside.

Tyrone’s parents wind around one another in the kitchen. Ben roots himself at the end of the bar, nodding to both of them and smiling at all the right conversational beats, his mind on a similar scene over ten years ago. His mother and father addressing the differences of their new appliances before they finally settled on takeout. Neither had been particularly fantastic cooks. Tiana and Naveen are lively and energetic, where his own parents were falsely calm to hide their nerves.

They can also turn into frogs.

“It happened when we were around your age,” Tiana explains over a stew that smells like onions, and tomatoes, and meat that makes Ben’s mouth water. “At first we thought the transformations were tied to our emotions.”

“Then Tiana managed an entire pregnancy as a human,” Naveen chimes in, sliding a bowl of peaches towards Ben’s right hand. “Can you imagine raising thousands of children?”

“So not emotion.” Ben spears the nearest peach, slathered with whipped cream, and pops it into his mouth. “That doesn’t seem consistent with Harry’s changes either. Seems like you have some idea now, what it might be.”

“It’s easy to turn into the animal, pretty hard to explain though,” Tiana looks to her husband. “Your friend will understand.”

“You...don’t want to be human just right then. I guess the best way to describe it is like being in a crowd and wanting, more than anything, to be home on the couch.”

“Getting out of your skin is easy,” Tiana says. “It’s the getting back in that’s harder.”

“And how does he do that?”

“You’re really not going to like the answer.”

Ben lays down his fork. “Right now it’s better than what we have, which is nothing.” Tiana and Naveen look between one another, then to Ben. “Please? We’d really appreciate any help.”

 

 

 _Mindfulness._ Ben trudges up the steps to the front door, releasing his long-held breath, remembering Lotte’s cheerful, unhelpful voice and his detached own.

“So there’s no drug—”

_So there’s no drug—_

“Think of it as a condition that needs to be—”

_I’m sorry. Your mother’s dementia has progressed to the point where—_

“But mindfulness? Harry’s not really a...meditation sort of guy.”

_Meditation isn’t a cure. How is it...how will it help her?_

“Trust me, it helps. And I hear there are apps for it now!”

_Trust me, it helps._

Ben’s hand closes around the doorknob and squeezes, the two conversations overlapping in his head. He’s fifteen years old again, wishing for an easy solution. There isn’t, and he doesn’t have to like it, but he’ll pretend he does so his mom-- _no,_ Harry--has an easier time.

All right, so he’s had a little bit of practice.

Ben can make out the noise from the television but he doesn’t try to guess what’s playing. Harry watches some shows that Ben’s never heard of and Carlos has a taste in documentaries that borders on masochistic.

“Carlos, I—”

“Ssh,” Harry is laid out on the couch, covered with a blanket and, on top of that, a thoroughly knocked out Carlos. Harry’s head is slightly tilted to take in the screen to their right, colors spilling off his side and onto the ground in the dim light. “I don’t think he’s slept more than a few hours for days.”

Ben isn’t...jealous exactly. If he had to unpack the feeling he has in that instant--and he doesn’t _have_ to, he insists, as he distracts himself by looking for the chart Carlos has kept so rigorously up to date--he’d label it ‘Also in Need of a Hug’. “When did you change?”

“Hm? Twenty minutes ago,” he says and Ben ignores that he sounds like he’s guessing. He looks calm, his hair laying more flat than usual and his eyes hooded in a way that suggests sleep is fast approaching. He must sense Ben’s attention on him, his eyes opening slightly wider, sliding sideways to stare at him. “You look like shit.”

Ben rubs his hands over his face. “I’m okay.”

“Uh-huh.” Harry stretches out an arm, tossing a colorful fur toy in the shape of a ferret from the nearby chair onto the ground, the meaning clear. Ben sits, and Harry relaxes again, arm going back to idly play with Carlos’ hair. “Hope he doesn’t crush me when I...pop back.”

“I might have some good news there.”

It helps, in retrospect, that Harry is trapped beneath a pile of blankets and sleeping Carlos. He takes the news about as well as Ben expected him too, but he’s made less reactionary by the soft snores, if the way he keeps looking at the top of Carlos’ head is anything to go by.

Eventually, Ben runs out of ways to answer Harry’s questions and Harry falls still and quiet, gaze focused on the screen once more, and too unfocused to really be watching.  

By the time Carlos wakes up, Ben’s leg is asleep, tucked up underneath his other knee. Wanting to go to his room, to sleep, but not wanting to leave Harry just in case. Wishing desperately for subtitles on the television, at least.

“About time,” Harry flicks the side of Carlos’ ear. “I can’t feel my lower half.”

“What time is it?” Carlos sits up, runs a hand through his hair like he knows exactly what Harry’s been doing for the past hour.

“Quarter past midnight.” Ben _does not_ look as Harry stumbles—quite literally—away from the couch, wrapping the blanket around his lower half with a grumble at the insistent push of Carlos’ hands. He disappears into Carlos’ room and Ben moves to the couch.

“How went Mission Facilier?”

Ben summarizes for Carlos, more briefly, what Tiana and Naveen had told him. Carlos recovers from disappointment admirably.

“There are other people out there that had the same thing done to them as Harry. That’s a lead.”

“Wish you’d been awake to tell Harry that.” Or at dinner to tell me, Ben adds, silently. He should have let Carlos come.

“It wouldn’t have helped.” Carlos leans back against the opposite arm of the couch, still sleep-addled and moving to stretch out every twisted muscle. “Harry doesn’t like waiting for things. Likes the easy way.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Maybe. But rushing into things can have,” Carlos pulls in his lip, contemplative. “Bigger consequences.”

Ben pushes Carlos’ knee. “Like missing a year of school recovering in a hospital kind of big?”

Carlos chuckles, digging his toes under Ben’s thigh. “I mean...he’s _always_ been like this.”

Ben waits Carlos out, shuffling around, searching for the remote and turning up the television to a reasonable level. He doesn’t look sleepy anymore. “Hey…”

“Hm?” Carlos flips through channel after channel, discontent until he lands on something suitably boring.

“You can tell me to shut up if you want but,” Ben starts, and it’s enough to catch Carlos’ attention. “What did happen when Harry saved you?”

“Ah, it’s a little—”

“Complicated.” Ben says at the same time Carlos does, diffusing some of the tension Ben hadn’t realized he’d gathered around his shoulders like a blanket.

“I don’t like to talk about my mom because...,” he motions to Ben and it’s a little insulting but Ben gets it. “She was a real piece of work, and pretty well off, considering. People used to tell me she never left the Isle so she could be a rich woman there, instead of a poor...person here.”

With the way Carlos stumbles over the word, Ben safely assumes they had called her crueler things than ‘person’, but says nothing.

“Kids are mean,” Carlos shrugs and leaves it at that. “Uma’s gang broke into my house after school one day. I guess they thought I’d be out with Evie. I don’t even know what they took, I hid until they left. Whatever it was, it _really_ pissed her off.”

Carlos is laughing, and Ben wants to join in, but it’s an unsteady insincere laugh, and Ben doesn’t trust it. He loops an arm around Carlos’ shoulders instead.

“When she got that mad she used to take me to the orphanage,” and before Ben can make a noise of protest he raises his hands in defense. “I’m not sure it _was_ an orphanage. But she told me it was. When I was young I had classmates who hated their parents, would wish they’d disappear. _My_ mom would leave me _there_ for the night and all I could think was, _this_? This is what they want?”

He stops talking for so long that Ben gives him a little shake. “Want something to drink? Hot chocolate?”

This seems to bring some life back to him, as he sits with a snort. “Yes, please.”

Ben makes two mugs with milk that’s on the edge of expiration, and cinnamon. He considers making a third, but Harry hasn’t made a sound inside Carlos’ room since he disappeared. It’s a few minutes of an architectural documentary before the drinks are cool enough to sip on. Ben and he had spent many comfortable evenings this way over the past year. They hadn't found time recently.

“Harry lived nearby, he saw it happen.” Carlos sets his mug down. “Um, I panicked. I guess I just got old enough to realize I _could_. And I opened the door and—”

“The door of the...house?” Carlos gives Ben a look that he usually reserves for Harry. “The door of your mother’s _moving_ vehicle?”

“It wasn’t so bad,” Carlos winces. “Except there was another car pretty close behind us. Well close enough that there was no way I would have gotten out of the road without Harry.”

Ben thinks about how Carlos looked wrapped up in Harry's arms. “He makes you feel safe?”

“I mean, probably,” Carlos looks towards his room, lowering his voice. “There’s something nice about being important to someone who seems to hate so many other people. Don’t tell him that.”

“I think I get it.” Ben drinks his hot chocolate to keep from laughing, remembering the oddly proud feeling he gets every time Mal invites him out for drinks. “Given any more thought to what kind of dog we’re going to adopt?”

“Thought you’d forgotten honestly.” Carlos grins across the couch at him. “I had a whole PowerPoint prepared on the superiority of mutts.”

“Well you wouldn’t have needed to convince me, but I appreciate the effort. Still feel like showing off?” Ben leans forward to set his mug aside as Carlos scrambles for his laptop. Ben waits until Carlos has settled back with the device, takes a deep, fortifying breath. “Out of curiosity, did you tell Evie I was your boyfriend?”

Carlos’ finger is outstretched, hovering above the keyboard. He’s watching Ben with a strange expression. “No,” the word is drawn out, soft at the end. “Am I?”

“Probably not, if you have to ask.” Laughter sputters from Ben before he can help it. “Not that you’re not... _you know_.” Carlos continues to stare so Ben pushes on. “Nice, and cute, and dateable—”

“Yeah, no, of course!” Carlos can’t duck his face quickly enough. _Click_. _Tap. Tap. Click._ “I mean, if you _want_ to go out…sometime? Not now.”

“Sure, not now,” Ben agrees, thinking, with a surge of fondness that had sprung up over the past month, of Harry in Carlos’ room, part-cat, part-man, probably something to Ben, and definitely _something_ to Carlos. “But. Yes.”

The unfamiliar expression on Carlos’ face shifts into a gut-punch of familiar _relief_ that Ben recognizes at once. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

 

 

Ben wakes up with Harry in his bed, his weight unmistakably human. Harry’s lounging on the pillow next to him looking as comfortable as he always does. Ben’s a little envious of the other man’s ability to relax on any surface; an unusual talent.

Ben scrubs his hand over an eye, skin tacky and morning chilled. “You’re naked aren’t you?”

“Don’t sound so disappointed.” Harry flips on his side to face him, chin propped on his hand. “Besides I don’t have any clothes here.”

Ben reaches beside the bed, groping blindly for his hamper until he finds a pair of drawstring pants. “You seem...calmer.”

“Mindfulness,” Harry’s tone is acidic. He takes the pants from Ben, regardless. “Uma says when you can’t do anything about it, own it. Besides cat isn’t the worst animal to be stuck as.”

“Yeah,” Ben shudders, thinking of Tiana and Naveen. He was never one of the boys who liked catching frogs for fun, a feeling that doubled now.

Harry turns over to struggle into the pants, giving Ben a view of his bare back. He’s focused on some point across the room, taking in even breaths.

“I asked Carlos out. Kind of.”

Harry stands in one fluid movement, his lack of response speaking volumes, but Ben couldn't guess about what. He hadn't been expecting a congratulations but some noise would be nice. A meow perhaps.

“Is that okay?”

Harry makes it to Ben’s cherry wood drawers, fingers dancing over his watch cases, before he speaks again. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Ben remembers how wistfully Carlos had spoken about being important to Harry. How mad he’d been when he thought Harry had left without saying goodbye. “I don’t know.”

Harry’s hand finds the framed picture of Ben's mom, the tip of his forefinger tilting it back until it falls into his palm. “Never got a good look at her face,” he says over his shoulder. “She’s pretty.”

“Thanks,” Ben smiles, and lets the sentiment stretch out comfortably.

Harry flops down backwards on the end of the bed. “I saw this coming. I might have...inferred to Uma you two were dating.”

 _Ah._ Ben thinks, moving his shoulders up his pillow to get a better look at Harry, who’s staring at him like he’s waiting to be reprimanded. But all Ben can think to say is, “Ah.”

“Carlos wouldn’t shut up about you. And I…,” Harry focuses on the ceiling, jaw tense. “ _I care about him_ , okay?”

“I know you do,” Ben says softly, trying not to add any panic to the apparent anxiety of Harry sharing his feelings. “So, did you come here to get a read on me?”

“It was a nice side benefit of teaching Gil a lesson, yeah.”

“And?”

“Let’s see.” The light from Ben’s window touches the bottom of Harry’s back when he raises himself on his elbows to count. “You took in a stranger off the street on Carlos’ word. You dove into this cat bullshit like a pro. The shit with your mom—”

“Don’t.” Ben cuts him off, swift, tone sharp.

“I wasn’t,” Harry holds his hands up, expression sincere. Some of the tension leaves Ben’s shoulders. “I’m just trying to say...you’re a good person. Better than me.”

“I don’t know if that’s _true_.” Ben folds his arms over his knees. Takes a risk because there’s no way no one’s told Harry even if he doesn’t remember. “You know you did a really good thing for Carlos.”

“It was instinct,” Harry says immediately, proving Ben right. “It’s not like my ten year old brain thought, I’ll save this pathetic kid.”

“That’s a lot braver instincts than most people have. Give yourself some credit, Harry.”

Harry stares at him, expression unreadable. His lips press together, open half a centimeter...and he turns into a cat again.

“I get it.” Ben sits up straighter. “Want to practice your breathing?”

 

 

If Ben expected his conversation with Carlos to change anything between them (he hadn’t, he insists, when the feeling pushes past his subconscious to brush across his more important thoughts), those expectations would have gone unmet. Ben and Carlos and Harry eat breakfast, and lunch together, that week, and agree to have dinner with Audrey and Jane, two of Carlos’ classmates nice enough to help him play catch up on last week’s classes in exchange for free booze. They watch _Up_ and Harry caves on the mindfulness app debate by Saturday night, fed up with the few techniques Ben learned working with his mom.

It’s all exceedingly normal. Comfortable.

Besides that, Ben has to go back to work, whatever Evie has to say on the matter. His father will be back home by the weekend, and there’s a growing unease clawing at the back of his mind from the single day Evie and he took off to go to the Isle, leaving the office nearly on its own. Carlos has school, but leaving Harry after their week-long sabbatical feels like _abandonment_ , despite the fact that Harry’s a perfectly functioning adult male and remains as such for most of the time they’re around him now. In fact the only times Harry changes is when he seems bored of whatever conversation they’re in the middle of or when the threat of _socialization_ looms (the dinner with Audrey and Jane being one such example, wherein halfway through the meal he had disappeared behind the hallway bathroom door and the two girls had met Carlos and Ben’s ‘adorable’, as yet unnamed house cat).

He’s also a cat the day Ben offers to drive his mother home from the hospital, two hours before his father is due at the airport. Harry sits by the car, tail swiping the pavement until Ben opens the passenger door.

“Hold on,” Carlos catches him before the door shuts, lifting Harry and ducking under Ben’s arm to slide into the seat. “Jay’s been wanting to grab lunch.”

It’s a good enough excuse as any to tag along, Ben thinks, rounding the car. He lets Carlos pick the music, happy to focus on the road, and the occasional distraction of Harry’s tail brushing against his knuckles.

His mother is sitting on a bench in the lobby of the hospital, dressed in a loose, lilac pant suit he’s never seen, and laughing at something Jay’s just said. Jay can always make her laugh.

“Hello, I’m Ben.” He holds out his hand when he’s close enough to reach her, but far enough to give her space, a practiced action. “I’ll be driving you home today.”

She stares at his hand, lips pulled to the side in a way that makes her nose wiggle. “You’re my son.”

Ben feels the little bubble of hope he usually does a decent job of ignoring swell up to his throat. He coughs to clear it. “Yep. Hi, Mom.”

She stands and doesn’t hug him. He doesn’t expect her to, but he clasps his hands in front of him to stop himself from reaching out as she walks around him. “I know that cat!”

Harry spends the time it takes for Ben and Jay to put her bags in the trunk of his car avoiding his mother’s outstretched arms. Something about being able to control the transformation makes the idea of receiving _pets_ from unwitting others a little...unscrupulous. It was good to know where he landed on the sliding morality scale in that regard.

Carlos is the perfect distraction, reintroducing himself and letting her talk about the book she was taking with her. Two infectious smiles feeding off of one another, bright enough to blind the room.

Carlos and Jay _do_ go to lunch, taking Harry with them. Ben’s glad for the chance to speak with his mother alone.

“That was Carlos, my, uh...boyfriend.” Ben decides to try the word, only to see how it sounds. Beyond that, what’s the harm? She’ll have forgotten by tomorrow, or next week. If he’s honest with himself, his mother was always the first person he told when he liked someone, and telling her now feels right and good.

“You don’t sound too sure about that.” Her brow is arched in a way Ben’s never been able to mimic.

“It’s just I keep thinking, what if we’re used to being together, you know? Comfortable.”

“Comfortable is good.” She fiddles with her seatbelt, loosening it as far as it will go. “You want to be comfortable around the person you’re with!”

“That’s what I thought. What I’ve always thought. But with Harry, Carlos is…,” How does Ben describe it? He very quickly realizes it’s not a feeling he _can_ articulate because he's spent weeks observing from the outside. This protective, cattle-prodded-to-action side of Carlos that Harry seemed to bring out. One that existed before Harry had turned up on their doorstep, but Ben had never seen.  

“Harry? The _cat_? You’re afraid he loves his cat more than you?” His mother stares out of the windshield, perplexed, then unimpressed. “Ben... _honey_.”

Ben laughs too loud for the small car, louder than the music, and his mother is drawn in to laugh along. “Not exactly. But maybe something like that,” he says when he can breathe again. “Forget Harry; just tell me when you started dating Dad, do you, hm…,”

“Remember?” she prods, gently.

“ _Remember_ ,” he echoes, “how you knew _he_ cared about _you_?”

He pulls up to a stop sign, chancing another glance at her. She’s staring at her hands, palms laid flat against the creases in the purple fabric covering her legs. She’s smiling, beatific, wistful.

“I know what you want me to say, Ben, but the truth is you’ll never know that. Not for certain. You just have to trust him.”

Ben startles at the sound of a car horn behind them, takes the toe of his shoe off of the brake.

“And if you’re actually worried about the Harry thing,” he can see her shake her head from the corner of his eye, as though she can’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. “I guess you have to really love cats. Or, at least, that cat.”

“Right, got it.” Ben says, and a smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “I already let him sleep in my bed, so it shouldn’t be too hard.”

She smiles back at him, sunshine bright, brown eyes filled with recognition that Ben will cling to, later, during the moments she has none. “That’s the spirit.”

 

 

Ben carries takeout Thai into the house, closing the door over the sound of shouting. Their place had certainly been...livelier since Harry had come to stay with them. Harry avoids any and all conversations that verge on sentimental with Ben, but Carlos gets away with a touch more in that regard, so whatever Carlos and Harry are talking about now must be serious, Ben reasons, for them to have become as loud as they are.

They are suspiciously more silent as Ben makes his way to the kitchen to find them standing off against one another in front of the television, which is equally suspicious by virtue of it being turned off. They both watch him unpack food with about as much grace as anyone being stared at by two sets of irritated eyes.

“What’s up guys?” Ben tries for a light tone.

Carlos settles back on his heels to stare at Harry, arms crossed over his chest. He keeps staring until Harry releases a breath and rounds the couch to join Ben at the kitchen island, holding up his phone as he approaches.

He’d been receiving a steady stream of texts from Gil starting the day they’d returned from the Isle, mostly drawings and pictures, as the other man didn’t seem sure if Harry-as-Cat could read. Ben found it adorable, especially because Harry had a little trouble interpreting them. The message on Harry’s screen, now, looks different. Shorter, for one. When Ben gets close enough to see the name, he understands why.

“Uma?”

“She’s been looking into something for me.” Harry pulls his phone back to him, tapping back a quick reply. “From the stuff in those papers we got from my dad.”

“The Grenioulles are from New Orleans,” Carlos slowly unspools, making his own way to the kitchen. He’s still obviously upset and not trying too hard to hide it. “There’s still a facility there.”

“Really?” Ben feels a little spring of hope beneath his ribcage, speeding his heartbeat. “When do we leave?”

Harry stares at him, expression flat and resolute. “We don’t.”

Ben opens his mouth to ask what he means but Carlos doesn’t give him the chance. “He’s going on his own. After everything _we_ did. Together!” The _like an idiot_ is implied.

“I’m going with Uma,” Harry says, and he’s _still_... _staring. At. Ben._

 _You just have to trust him._ Ben breaks eye contact to pour their abundance of noodles into a bowl. Harry had come to Carlos because…

 _He just doesn't want to get left behind,_  Carlos had said, wrapped around his beer at Vita Vite.

 _I_ _care about him._ The hard won, and not at all surprising confession. And Harry had called Ben  _good_. Had looked out for Carlos for years.

 _I guess you have to really love cats. Or, at least, that cat,_ his mother had told him, and _why_ had it never occurred to Ben that Harry would have measured him by that same scale?

 _Carlos wouldn’t shut up about you,_ Ben meets Harry’s gaze again.  _I guess I really have to love you now._

“Okay.” Carlos stops whatever it was he was about to say, swinging around to glare at Ben. It’s weak though; clearly he wasn’t expecting Ben to give in without his own slew of questions. Harry’s face, meanwhile, is slack with relief. “We’ll be here when you get back.”

 

 

Harry calls a week later.

Carlos takes his cell phone to the kitchen, pacing and talking quickly, filled with the sort of energy Ben hadn’t seen since just before he’d stood in the door frame last Monday and squeezed Harry around the waist looking worried, and a little angry, and small.

Eventually his words slow, stilted and calm, and he hands the phone to Ben, shaking his shoulder to get his attention.

Harry doesn’t even wait for the hello before he presses him: _How is he?_

“Hello, Harry,” Ben tries anyway, fighting a smile. “Carlos is _well_.”

Carlos leans back from the open fridge, a half-eaten cheese stick dangling from his mouth and an accusatory stare.

_And your mom?_

“Asking after my family? You _must_ be in the South.” He waits out the unamused silence. “She’s _fine_ , thank you. How are _you_?”

They talk about the food in Louisiana and Uma gets on briefly to tell him about the seemingly dull process of breaking into a facility in the middle of the Bayou.

“Need any help?”

 _Never once in my life,_ she cackles. _But we’ll be in touch. Promise._

There is a noticeable quiet from the direction of the kitchen after Ben sets Carlos’ phone down on the table in front of the couch. When he turns, it’s to see Carlos staring at the (thankfully closed) refrigerator. “What’s wrong?

“Nothing. It’s just...he _called_.” Carlos heads back towards the couch and Ben reads the expression on his face as _wonder_. “He doesn’t, usually. I think you were a good influence.”

“I think being a cat is a humbling experience for anyone.”

“Really? A _cat_? _Humbling_?”

Ben concedes the point with a shrug. “Maybe it’s all the _mindfulness_ exercises.”

Carlos sets his hands on his hips, seemingly more settled than he has been in days. “It’s only three, wanna go to town?”

“Uh, sure.” Ben lifts himself from the couch, halfway there before Carlos leans forward to wrap a hand around his bicep and pull him the rest of the way. “Where to?”

Carlos walks them backwards, attempting to get them to the coat closet and mostly succeeding in tugging Ben snug against him, so close Ben can smell the sweet chapstick Carlos still uses too much of. “I believe I was promised a date _and_ a dog?”

“And you want both in one day? Greedy.”

“You have no idea.”

**Author's Note:**

> Like it? Leave a comment! Or come talk to me on [tumblr](http://feoplepeel.tumblr.com)!


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